Escape Pod 137: Citytalkers

Escape Pod 137: Citytalkers is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains moderate violence and stronger weather.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:11 — 32.4MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced sites:
Heifer International
Podsafe Music Network (Terms of Use)

Closing Music: “O Come All Ye Faithful,” performed by Twisted Sister

Citytalkers

by Mur Lafferty

Gloria blinked. “Why do the people in Cleveland love Christmas more than anywhere else?”

Toby grinned and spread his hands on the bar, unadorned fingers splayed. He stared at them, “I didn’t say Cleveland’s people loved Christmas. I said Cleveland.”

“And you’re saying Charlotte doesn’t like Christmas?”

Toby took a deep breath and let it out. “Oh, no. I’m saying Charlotte flat out hates Christmas.”

Gloria kept her voice level, the best thing to do when dealing with a crazy person. “And why do you think this?”

“I’m an urban shaman. A citytalker. I’m here to talk to Charlotte to find out why it’s unhappy.”

Escape Pod 136: Bright Red Star

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2005.

Rated R. Contains war and strong violence and heavy moral themes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:50 — 23.3MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
Reading is Fundamental
Starship Sofa

Bright Red Star

by Bud Sparhawk

Survivors isn’t exactly the word. What they found were sixteen bodies without arms, legs, and most organs. What remained were essentially heads hooked up to life support and fueled by oxygenated glucose pumps. There were a couple hundred strands of glass fibre running from the ship’s walls into each skull, into each brain, into each soul. Four of the sixteen were still functioning–alive is not a word to describe their condition.

There was no hesitation on the part of Command. They ordered everyone, except combat types like us, from the most likely targets. Humanity couldn’t allow any more people to become components for the Shardie offense.

But civilians never listen. Farmers were the worse, hanging onto their little plots and crops until somebody dragged them away, kicking and screaming at the injustice of it all. That’s why we were here. Forty settlers had stupidly refused to be evacuated from New Mars. Forty we didn’t know about until we got that one brief burst.

My mission was to make certain that they didn’t become forty armless, legless, gutless, screamless weapon components.

Escape Pod 135: Stu

Appears in The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories, from Golden Gryphon Press.

Rated G. Contains military bureaucracy, but nothing more disturbing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:30 — 28.5MB)

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Stu

by Bruce McAllister

The first time I met Stu, I was just a kid and there weren’t any lights hovering over his house. The last time I saw him, when I was grown and we both knew what life could be if you let it, there were. That’s the best way to start, I guess.

That first time, our dad piled us into our old Chevy wagon–the kind you took to drive-in movies with sheets on the seats and your kids in pajamas–and drove us to the north county, saying only, “Stu is an inventor. He’ll never see any royalties from his inventions because the Navy owns them, but he’s an inventor, the kind that made America great.”

How had he first met Stu? How does anyone in the Navy get to know a wide-eyed, crazy-haired inventor who wasn’t at all “strack,” who shouldn’t have been anywhere near the military but somehow was? On a Secret Project, of course. My brother and I–who were 10 and 6 at the time–were sure of it. Our dad and Stu had to be working on a Secret Project together.

Escape Pod 134: Me and My Shadow

First appeared in Unauthorized Autobiographies and Other Curiosities, 1984.

Rated R. Contains violent crime, violent imagery, and themes of violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:00 — 25.4MB)

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Me and My Shadow

by Mike Resnick

Of course, even if we had met before, they couldn’t recognize me now. I know. I’ve spent almost three years trying to find out who I was before I got Erased — but along with what they did to my brain, they gave me a new face and wiped my fingerprints clean. I’m a brand new man: two years, eleven months, and seventeen days old. I am (fanfare and trumpets, please!) William Jordan. Not a real catchy name, I’ll admit, but it’s the only one I’ve got these days.

I had another name once. They told me not to worry about it, that all my memories had been expunged and that I couldn’t dredge up a single fact no matter how hard I tried, not even if I took a little Sodium-P from a hypnotist, and after a few weeks I had to agree with them–which didn’t mean that I stopped trying.

Erasures never stop trying.

EP London Meetup

I’ve already responded to the people who e-mailed to express an interest, but just to make it public: I’m in London, and we’ll be having an informal pub meetup on Sunday, November 25 at 1 PM at The George on 77 Borough High Street. Not sure yet if we’ll be inside or outside; I’ll be wearing a purple shirt, and if you don’t see me, just look for the crowd of people who look like science fiction fans. If you can make it, we look forward to seeing you there!

Escape Pod 133: Other People’s Money

First appeared in Forbes Magazine, October 2007.

Rated G. Contains Byzantine finance and potentially disturbing art.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:20 — 16.0MB)

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Other People’s Money

by Cory Doctorow

Which is why she was hoping that the venture capitalist would just leave her alone. He wasn’t a paying customer, he wasn’t a fellow artist — he wanted to *buy* her, and he was thirty years too late.

“You know, I pitched you guys in 1999. On Sand Hill Road. One of the founding partners. Kleiner, I think. The guy ate a salad all through my slide-deck. When I was done, he wiped his mouth, looked over my shoulder, and told me he didn’t think I’d scale. That was it. He didn’t even pick up my business card. When I looked back as I was going out the door, I saw his sweep it into the trash with the wrapper from his sandwich.”

The VC — young, with the waxy, sweaty look of someone who ate a lot of GM yogurt to try to patch his biochemistry — shook his head. “That wasn’t us. We’re a franchise — based here in LA. I just opened up the Inglewood branch. But I can see how that would have soured you on us. Did you ever get your VC?”

Escape Pod 132: Sparks in a Cold War

First appeared in Future Wars, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff.

Rated PG. Contains violence, mayhem, and politics.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:30 — 32.0MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
SFF Audio

Sparks in a Cold War

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

“We’re all committing a crime,” Audra said, leaning back and closing her eyes. “That’s part of what we’re paying you for.”

Technically, she was right. Extreme Safaris took their clients to unsanctioned or dangerous worlds, trips which could result in serious fines or, in Bryer’s case, the loss of his ship’s clearance for those areas. So far, Bryer had managed to avoid the fines simply by having his clients sign a document that said they had insisted on a trip to the unsanctioned area. He had never had his clearance removed, but he figured it wouldn’t be a serious problem. He could always charter another ship.

“You shot a sentient being,” he said. “You didn’t pay for that right.”

“Oh?” She tilted her head toward him. “Is there a higher fee for that?”

Escape Pod 131: Hesperia and Glory

First appeared in Subterranean Magazine #4.

Rated G. Contains classic Martian action/adventure and potentially hazardous philosophy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:00 — 23.4MB)

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Hesperia and Glory

by Ann Leckie

Escape Pod 130: What We Learned From This Morning’s Newspaper

First appeared in Unfamiliar Territory, 1973.

Rated G. It’s slightly safer to listen to than the New York Times.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:45 — 25.3MB)

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What We Learned From This Morning’s Newspaper

by Robert Silverberg

I got home from the office as usual at 6:47 this evening and discovered that our peaceful street has been in some sort of crazy uproar all day. The newsboy it seems came by today and delivered the New York Times for Wednesday December 1 to every house on Redbud Crescent. Since today is Monday November 22 it follows therefore that Wednesday December 1 is the middle of next week. I said to my wife are you sure that this really happened? Because I looked at the newspaper myself before I went off to work this morning and it seemed quite all right to me.

At breakfast time the newspaper could be printed in Albanian and it would seem quite all right to you my wife replied. Here look at this. And she took the newspaper from the hall closet and handed it all folded up to me. It looked just like any other edition of the New York Times but I saw what I had failed to notice at breakfast time, that it said Wednesday December 1.

Is today the 22nd of November I asked? Monday?

It certainly is my wife told me. Yesterday was Sunday and tomorrow is going to be Tuesday and we haven’t even come to Thanksgiving yet. Bill what are we going to do about this?